I think in songs

If you have to leave, I wish that you would just leave. Your presence it lingers here, and it won’t leave me alone.

When you have no words…

(…there are always plenty to borrow.)

I wish I had what I needed
To be on my own
Cause I feel so defeated
And I’m feeling alone
And it all seems so helpless
And I have no plans
I’m a plane in the sunset
With nowhere to land

And all I see
It could never make me happy
And all my sand castles
Spend their time collapsing

Let me know that you hear me
Let me know your touch
Let me know that you love me
And let that be enough

It’s my birthday tomorrow
No one here could know
I was born this Thursday
22 years ago
And I feel stuck
Watching history repeating
Who am I?
Just a kid who knows he’s needy

Let me know that you hear me
Let me know your touch
Let me know that you love me
And let that be enough

“…it’s worth fighting for”

I just want to write off last week as a bad week. I am feeling a little better.

I can be so easily and incredibly discouraged. It doesn’t take much. But just the same, I can be so encouraged and uplifted. It’s hard to live like this. It’s nice during an up trend, but during a down trend I can get so very down. I need a lot of encouragement. I need reassurance every once in a while. I know I don’t get these things because I don’t give them. I don’t offer or initiate. But I never want to share my burdens, even though they’re dying to get out. I withdraw and go into my shell instead. I can be a fake person. I feel like very few have seen me as truly real. For me to open up about the serious things is a big deal and speaks volumes…

I enjoyed back to back hanging out with people this weekend and *trying* to talk. I miss friendship. I’ve been so apathetic. I’m sorry for that. I really suck at life sometimes.

I think I’m going to be okay. Not smooth sailing, but at least I feel somewhat stable. Last week just seemed to aggravate my already unstable state of mind. A lot on my plate, a lot on my mind…

Such is life

I won’t lie. I’m feeling completely frustrated with my life. I really don’t even know where to begin. To attempt to explain the mess that has become me would take a while and I really just feel like I need to vent a little – not write a book. I keep my feelings to myself. I need to put them to paper.

In a nutshell I guess I just have no idea what to do or what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know what the next move is. I am way out of touch with just about everything I used to be apart of or believe in. I’m feeling isolated and on my own. I’ve withdrawn, which is my biggest defense mechanism that only brings on a sort of vicious cycle. And yet it’s just what I do. It’s hard for me to let people in when I’m in shut down mode. I don’t know where the quality or purpose is in my life. I wake up. I go to school. I take care of my kid. Bicker with my husband about the house being messy. It’s all very mechanical. I would rather be the naive daydreamer I used to be. I used to have dreams. I used to think that I could do anything and that people had good intentions. I don’t seem to believe that anymore. I don’t seem to have the passion or faith I used to. Optimism has become overshadowed by cynicism & negativity. I seem to have no joy. I’m in and out of depressive moods. A few months ago I hit a low. I know it’s ridiculous, but for the first time I truly felt like the world just might be better off without me. Not to scare anybody, but literally, this is what I was going through. It’s hard to explain because everybody knows it’s a selfish contemplation. But I felt like a bad mother; a bad wife; a bad friend; a bad daughter; like I had absolutely nothing to offer. I’m running on empty, and this all makes me feel useless. I have just been mentally, spiritually, emotionally, internally, etc, in an ugly place.

I’m lost.

On my mind

Could it be that everything goes round by chance? Or only one way that it was always meant to be?

“…the world will go on turning”

I think maybe three people read this. Sometimes I have to ask myself why I write as if I’m writing to an audience. We all do this in some form or another. We all want people to care. Blogging is my way of pretending. I am not aiming to be a downer. I’m just being realistic. (As I go on, writing for “somebody”).

It’s a blind hope. You put forth your voice and show your vulnerability via a public platform open for anybody to find you, just hoping to be found. Hypothetically, everybody who’s anybody could be reading your words. Maybe you don’t actually want to know. Ignorance is bliss. Maybe nobody is reading. But maybe somebody is. Maybe people actually care about what you have to say. Or maybe somebody cares.

And maybe I am going on 24 hours of awakeness mixed with sick.

“I intentionally wrote it out…”

I have really learned a lot about myself and life this past year. I haven’t been writing as much, I realize. And I don’t just mean on this blog – but in general. I was thinking about it, and I think part of the reason for that has to do with an increase in social networking. We blog our day to day thoughts, and as minor as they may be they seem to sometimes quench that thirst to write about what is deeper. It reminds me of drinking soda when you are thirsty. You’re not truly taking care of your thirst, even though momentarily, you think you are. What you really need is water. That is one theory of mine, anyway.

But all of that is rabbit trailing. My year. That’s what I was writing about. I had a thought, and now I am not sure where I was going with that. So I suppose I’ll have to collect my thoughts a little more.

Every once in a while I tend to temporarily lose my mind

I have been in the weirdest state for the past week or so. Incredibly introspective. This is the side of me that I don’t believe anybody can really fully relate to or understand unless they could jump into my brain and see the mess of thoughts that cycle through. There is no point in trying to describe or make sense of it. At the end of it my only rationale is to conclude that life is strange. Everything changes yet nothing really does at the same time. Things just feel odd to say the least.

Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if God is really just a big jokester, throwing us all out here to fend for ourselves. When you rise above yourself for a moment sometimes you realize that humanity just seems like a big joke. What are we even doing here? I can’t help but wonder. Our mere existence is too much for me to comprehend or fathom. Here I am outside of it all – all of our struggles, petty feelings, cycles of failure and feeling sorry for ourselves, hours spent on worry, regret, nostalgia. It just all seems so useless and small.

Eventually I will find my way back on track, I am sure.

Nostalgia (part II)

This is mostly unrelated to the last post, but incidentally still falls under the subject of nostalgia (welcome to my mind).

I had an excuse today to walk around campus. I am only taking one of my classes on location this summer (aerobics) which is on the outer edge of the college. Usually I head straight for the parking lot after wards, but today I needed to visit the bookstore. As I was walking through, the strongest reminiscent feelings came over me.

When I think about it, this college holds a lot of important memories for me. I started attending in fall 2007 after Steve and I first married. I’ve learned so much here. Many minutes spent on reflection and contemplation. Many of my thoughts trapped within its enclosure. I remember daydreaming about life, and thinking about all the people in mine. I remember being in my child development class thinking about little Laelia who had just been born, and wondering when we’d have our own. I can still recall specific conversations I had here that now serve as markers for certain milestones or occasions on my life’s own time line. Like walking through the same walkways of today when Adam called to tell me he liked my song for Christmas Friends that first year he put it together, feeling so proud. And I still remember rushing home on a busy day to prepare for the community group we used to host in our first home. I remember meeting Nicole after school to look at engagement rings, and walking out of class as Lauren texted me excited to find out if the little one I was carrying would be a boy or girl. I remember sitting in my history class during a lecture writing baby names over and over just before I got pregnant. I remember finals week at the close of fall 2008. How it felt being 8 weeks pregnant, sitting in my biology class looking at the calendar and marking how many weeks I would be when…

That by far is one of the fondest memories, and the closest I have to the present; being pregnant while finishing up my last semester. The last time I really made this walk that I walked today was when I was still carrying Penelope. This was the thing that really caught me. I stepped into a true deja vu moment. I was suddenly aware of myself and realized I didn’t have my large belly. It was as if I was suddenly in the spring of 2009 again – it wasn’t me or my life as I know it now. The weather felt the same. Everything. Pregnancy was such a happy time for me. I really cherished that era in my life.

It’s so interesting how large of a roll the most common places can play into our fondest memories. How certain scents and sights can just capture you in the moment all over again. The way the campus captures the morning or the sounds of scattered voices echoing off the concrete. Maybe it is because places are more permanent. The buildings are still there. The trees and the grass landmark the same sites. The wind feels and sounds the same whenever it blows through the branches. Places have the ability to remain virtually the same while we do not. So when we revisit a familiar place, it may be the closest we will ever be to connecting with our past selves…

Nostalgia.

And when we get home, I know we won’t be home at all. This place we live, it is not where we belong. And I miss who we were in the town that we could call our own. Going back to get away after everything has changed. Could you remind me of a time when we were so alive? Do you remember that? Could you help me push aside all that I have left behind? Do you remember that? (Everything has changed.) So we stand here now and no one knows us at all. I won’t get used to this. I won’t get used to being gone. And going back won’t feel the same if we aren’t staying. Going back to get away after everything has changed. It’s taking up our time, we can’t go back. We can’t go back at all.